


Scars (It's what I'm made of)

by IsisKitsune



Series: Prompt Fics [11]
Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Bruce Feels, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Prompt Fic, References to Child Abuse, References to Suicide, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-16
Updated: 2012-10-16
Packaged: 2017-11-16 11:20:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/538882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IsisKitsune/pseuds/IsisKitsune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hulk always heals the wounds, but leaves the scars. Unseen, hidden but just as real as the wounds had been.<br/>How the team finds out about them...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scars (It's what I'm made of)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Made of Scars" by Stone Sour  
> The prompt and that song just sync so well I couldn't help but write this for it.  
> Otherwise written for a [Prompt](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/5758.html?thread=7310974#t7310974)

5) Widow

Natasha was the first on the scene, as much as she hated to be, when Bruce woke up and blinked at her he shyly looked away and brought his knees up to cover himself. “You’ve got nothing I haven’t seen before Banner,” she smirked though it was mainly for show when he looked back up with that same trolling grin he had the first time they’d been eye to eye.

“Wouldn’t be so sure about that Romanoff,” Bruce stood, stumbling and ended up jamming his arm badly enough that his elbow was bleeding, “No, stay back.” Natasha automatically jumped forward to help, but stepped back at the warning. “Did the other guy get knocked in the head?”

“Stark mentioned something about a car to the face over the coms, I wasn’t in the line of sight.” Even with the warning, she still kept him from stumbling. One arm pressed against his back while the other gripped his uninjured arm. Even with her hands gloved, even with the bare minimum press, she felt them. It was like a roadmap was spread across his back, his arm… hidden, unseen, but there. Scars, thousands of them.

“He heals the wounds when we change, doesn’t mean the scars aren’t there.”

4) Thor

“Thanks for helping me stitch this up. I’m not up to dealing with the other guy again today,” Bruce smiled, wincing a bit but knowing the worst that would happen would be the other guy’s eyes showing through. Sans a bomb going off in front of him or a machine gun aimed at him, he wouldn’t be transforming again so soon. That on top of finding out that ‘magic’ was so close to radiation they figured the demi-god would be able to withstand at least minimal exposure needed to help Bruce stitch up his arm.

“It’s nothing to help a comrade nurse battle wounds! Why you do not have more seems a blessing given the nature of the beast, Hulk.”

“Right,” Bruce just sighed and looked away, brushing his free hand through his hair and still finding bits of glass somehow hiding within his curls. “Could you check my head while you’re here? I think I might have scraped something…”

Okay, Thor was not the most tender handed individual to ask for a head check, “Ow, Thor, not so hard… You’re supposed to be checking for glass not lice.”

Thor frowned, apologizing, more for Bruce’s ‘sensitive skull’ than for hair pulling before taking off his overly thick latex gloves and going at it with bare fingers. Much less pulling, with the exception of a few shards that had to be ‘untangles’ –aka pulled out by the roots- but then all action stopped when Thor pressed his fingers against his skull. “Something wrong? I don’t feel anymore stinging…”

Thor was at a loss, his fingers carded through the curls, tracing the starburst across the back of his head and Bruce shook. Suddenly he realized when the demi-god was confused about. “Remember when I said I was low? Yeah… That’s the reminder that it didn’t work.”

3) Hawkeye

“Looks like you’ll be getting those out early huh?” Clint tried to tease, taunt, anything to get the doctor’s spirits up as they rose higher in the helicopter, waiting for the signal to move.

“Yeah,” Bruce sighed, hand brushing the half healed stitches on his arm before he started picking at them. No point leaving them in now.

“Hey, buck up,” Clint reached up, brushing his ungloved hand against Bruce’s chin. Bruce flinched just enough that his hand trailed over a jagged patch of skin just under his eye, leading toward his ear. “I thought you healed when you changed…”

“I do.”

“Then what caused that?”

Bruce laughed, cold, “I looked.” Bruce caught the signal before Clint did and jumped.

2) Cap

“Arm all healed?”

Bruce was still a bit out of it as he was helped toward the carrier after the battle. “Huh? Yeah, of course,” it was kind of a stupid question when you thought about it. Changing into a green giant with the only thought in his head, smash, tended to fix all his problems. Well, physical ones anyway.

“Let me get a look,” Bruce flinched back, but not before Steve had a hold of his once wounded elbow. Steve blinked at the healed skin. He looked unconvinced and pulled a glove off to slide his palm over it as if it was some kind of joke. “I can’t even heal that fast,” oh that was it, one supped up human to gamma irradiated monster… That’s what it was. “Wait, what’s this?” Bruce bit his lip hard enough it almost bled, Steve’s hand wrapped around his forearm.

“Uh… Dad grabbed my arm when I was a kid, it went through the skin,” Steve looked mortified, not just because of the explanation but the fact that he couldn’t SEE a damn thing wrong with his arm. But there, under his palm, was the tell tale indentation of an old wound. Long since forgotten, no not forgotten, hidden.

1) Tony

Tony had known… From the first press of that overly smooth hand into his. Lines, bends, bumps, scarred reminders. Every last one of them, and not a soul could see them. “What about this one?” Bruce sighed as his palm press against a rather long slash across his ribs, the perfect skin barely showing the raid marks even under the pressure.

“Tank, had to dig out a chunk of shrapnel. I think he ended up blowing it up and got hit.”

“And this one?” Bruce let his head drop lower as Tony’s hand traced up his side to press across a large sized whole right next to his spine. “Pipe, I think it was a construction site or something. I don’t remember much that time. Just rain really.”

“What about here?” Bruce smiled, continued to answer, unscathed by Tony’s ever present urge to ask, to know, to comfort, and to touch. Each time he learned a bit more of his body, his pain, his past, and his scars.


End file.
